During the holiday season, a lot of people talk about
charity and doing good for others. There are the obviously legitimate
organizations that di a lot of good- Toys for Tots is one good example[1].
Then, there are the
ridiculous efforts, most notably "selfless Tuesday," when instead of
actually going out and helping people, Facebook members were encouraged to
change their profile picture from one of themselves to...something else
(usually their dog).
This drew my ire almost as much as the morons who post
status updates that read:
"Like this status if you wish cancer didn't exist!
XOXOX) #badcancer #yolo."
In honor of selfless Tuesday, instead of ranting against the
morons who posted the aforementioned statements, I decided to actually do something selfless. Yes, this meant
that I was going to:
1.
Put on my boots
2.
Put on my gloves and coat
3.
Leave my computer
4.
Leave my house
5.
Drive to the grocery store
I originally got my idea from a priest I know.
There are a lot of homeless people where I live[2]. I
don't want to give them money but I feel bad if they are actually hungry. I
usually try to bring a bunch of leftovers and rolls whenever I leave a
restaurant, but I typically don't keep Styrofoam containers of dinner in my car[3].
To mitigate this, I got granola bars and put them in my
center console. This way I can offer any homeless people I see something at
least without worrying they'll spend a dollar on drugs, alcohol, or
prostitutes.
(I totally wish we could pay our politicians this way).
I shared it on Facebook (and yes, I refrained from adding
#yolo). Friends shared it with their friends and eventually it caught on and others
pledged to do the same.
I even promised to give a box of granola bars to whoever
came by my apartment that they could keep in their cars. Most of my friends
thought it was a great idea.
However, my cousin, the self-proclaimed socialist, in jest
joked that what I was doing was very "un-libertarian."
I took this opportunity to educate him as to why it was
quite the contrary and used it as a real-life example to show him how
libertarians are not the cold-hearted capitalist pigs portrayed by the leftist
media.
Libertarians are not anti-charity at all. In fact, the
official stance on private charity vs. government-mandated charity is this, as
found on the Libertarian Party's official website:
If the federal
government's attempt at charity has been a dismal failure, private efforts have
been much more successful. America is the most generous nation on earth. We
already contribute more than $125 billion annually to charity. However, as we
phase out inefficient government welfare, private charities must be able to
step up and fill the void.
To help facilitate
this transfer of responsibility from government welfare to private charity, the
federal government should offer a dollar-for-dollar tax credit for
contributions to private charities that provide social-welfare services. That
is to say, if an individual gives a dollar to charity, he should be able to
reduce his tax liability by a dollar.
(http://www.lp.org/issues/poverty-and-welfare)
Now, I don’t expect the government to reimburse me for those
granola bars. For me, it was a personal decision and I had the money. I felt
that I had an opportunity to directly help people while simultaneously knowing with
utmost confidence that my charity is going directly
to the people who need it.
I have worked with other private charities such as Habitat
for Humanity as well as helped low-income people write and edit their resumes
and cover letters. I routinely donate old furniture and clothes to reputable
charities (I personally furnished a halfway house with my husband’s old
furniture.[4])
As anyone who has every done charity work knows, there are
few better feeling in this world than helping people help themselves. With
private charities, the people are being directly helped and my tax dollars are
not going to waste in the way that they would with government-mandated welfare,
which has become a mismanaged, ill-advised bureaucratic nightmare.
Most people, even libertarians, want to help our fellow man.
What we don’t like however, is being forced to pay taxes into a program that is
widely abused and poorly managed, both fiscally and operationally. It’s time we
let people help people again, and leave Big Government out of it.
Granola bars in the ol’ Grand
Cherokee console:
